


inter alia

by boyeater



Series: boys playing god [2]
Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Small Town, Ambiguous/Open Ending, M/M, Morally Ambiguous Character, Suburbia, nothing is explicitly said but lots...of things are implied
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-09
Updated: 2020-02-09
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:22:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22627033
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boyeater/pseuds/boyeater
Summary: Donghyuck parts his lips, and Jaemin does as he pleases.He always does.They’re alike in that manner.(Among other things.)
Relationships: Lee Donghyuck | Haechan/Na Jaemin
Series: boys playing god [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1642027
Comments: 11
Kudos: 73





	inter alia

**Author's Note:**

  * For [haesuns](https://archiveofourown.org/users/haesuns/gifts), [incendiarism](https://archiveofourown.org/users/incendiarism/gifts).



> i had 24 hours to respond to this and instead i did it after like a month but that's okay. read [matchbox myopia](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22312858) by ash and [modus operandi](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21949990) by sol for more sexy and unhinged nahyuck!!!!!!!! this is a.. remix.. i suppose of modus operandi!!!! small town suburbia things haha!!!! it pales in comparison to both fics but i am just a little bastard. Don't be mean to me 
> 
> ash, thank you so much for writing matchbox myopia!!!!! ITS SO SEXY.. so sexy and unhinged..i still haven't written the comment that it so painfully deserves but please take this as a peace offering for now as i slap myself into shape #__# your endless support for all of my nonsense and rambling across all platforms is so so dear to me and i cannot thank you enough for it #_# please continue to go about your ash things for a long long time <3 <3 <3 YOUR WRITING SLAMS # i thought i should say that because i am right
> 
> sol, sexy bastard i think modus operandi sexy!!!!! you know how much i love mod op so i will not say much but #####sexy ! i hope my take on small town suburbia questionable things. is satisfactory! if not, that is OKAY i pretend i do not see. this is very fun to write so i think i'll write more of this verse! who knows
> 
> that said [powerpoint transition] here it is

Suburbia looks like this: 

Like a perfect reality, something in its code that makes it a little more dreamy, prettier than most and nicer in so many ways, in so many directions. White picket fences and grass that looks greener on this side of the fence. 8 hour work days and 5 days a week. Block parties and free car washes. Like a toy made from plastic and shiny with gloss. Sidewalks free of cracks and streetlights that don’t burn out. Nothing out of the ordinary on yesterday’s newspaper headlines. A little too good to be true. Like a lab rat raised by latex gloves and prodded at by masked faces in lab coats, tested on until it’s completely immune from all strains of a virus.

Suburbia tastes like this:

Coffee that’s too sweet. Candy that’s too sticky. Popsicles that are too sweet and too sticky. 

It’s artificial sweetness. 

All of it is fake. 

Turn to the nutrition facts and read off the list of chemicals used.

The summer heat beats down on the town and it clings to Donghyuck’s skin as he sits outside of the corner store and bites down on a wooden popsicle stick, stained and still tasting of something particularly _red_.

His lips are sticky. 

Donghyuck prods at the inside of his cheek with his tongue. 

Tastes like artificial strawberry. 

Too sweet. Too candied to be natural. 

It’s got a strong aftertaste.

Donghyuck turns to the boy to his right and looks him up and down for a long time, for two minutes. Was it two minutes? Who knows? Time ticks by so slowly in suburbia. Or do clocks move faster here? No one really knows. No one really cares. 

Jaemin turns his head to look at him, not that he really looks at him, not that Donghyuck cares. Not really. No one really cares. No one cares about anyone here. No. That’s not true. Donghyuck cares about Jaemin, more than he cares about anyone, about anyone combined, about anything, not that that’s a particularly high bar to pass, but that’s not the point. The point is that Donghyuck cares about Jaemin, he does, in some part of him, but he doesn’t care about what Jaemin does, what Jaemin doesn’t do. Not like how everyone cares about what everyone is doing, what everyone isn’t doing. It’s a balance, you know, a careful, precarious little balance of not caring about anyone or anything and caring so very much about every little thing. It’s a balance, nonetheless, that a place like this upholds so very passionately. 

“Fuck are you looking at, Donghyuck?”

Donghyuck doesn’t say anything, simply draws Jaemin in by the front of his white t-shirt and presses his mouth to his lips, slowly working his tongue into Jaemin’s mouth as Jaemin allows him to do as he pleases. Donghyuck fists the cotton of Jaemin’s shirt and presses his tongue flat against Jaemin’s and licks a filthy line across it.

“Fuck.” Jaemin spits off to the side, grimacing as he washes the taste away with orange soda. “You know I don’t like artificial strawberry.”

Donghyuck sits back, soft palms splayed across rough pavement and sunshine beating down on his skin. His basketball shorts ride up his thighs just a fraction as he stretches and Jaemin blatantly stares. Donghyuck lolls his head back, closing his eyes and whistling as sunlight hits his eyelids and paints them red and orange. “Thought I could change your mind.”

Jaemin’s voice is flat, almost neutral, like he’s only stating a simple fact. And for the most part, he is. Na Jaemin is good at a lot of things, but he’s particularly good at stating simple facts and saying it with a pretty smile on his face, eyes glittery and expression a little ditzy, so it looks like he’s only teasing, not biting, not provoking, “Not as easy as you think I am.” 

Donghyuck only laughs, doesn’t agree nor disagree. 

Jaemin notices, smile goes sharp, but he doesn’t bother to say anything, doesn’t bother to ask a question that Donghyuck won’t bother to answer. 

Donghyuck drinks the rest of Jaemin’s orange soda. 

They’re not sure how much time passes after that. 

Maybe the orange sun sets and the moon glows off-white, and maybe it’s tomorrow already, or maybe it’s still yesterday. It doesn’t particularly matter. Nothing really matters here. It’s still a small town that nobody bothers to move into. It’s still a small town that nobody bothers to move out of. 

Suburbia is like that.

No one knows how they got here and no one knows how to run away.

Jaemin asks for a kiss. 

Donghyuck parts his lips, and Jaemin does as he pleases. 

He always does. 

They’re alike in that manner.

(Among other things.)

Restlessness. 

That’s what Donghyuck thinks Jaemin tastes like. 

Under the aftertaste of orange soda, Jaemin tastes like restlessness. Like a soul that is already straying from this little town that no one is really capable of straying from. Like a boy that thinks the world is more than just this town that doesn’t move. Not forwards, not backwards. This town that just stays still. 

Restlessness and orange soda. 

What a combination of things. 

“I’m not going to stay here.”

Donghyuck doesn’t say anything, doesn’t look at Jaemin, only dropping his popsicle stick into Jaemin’s orange soda bottle, the wooden stick making a light clinking sound against the glass. 

“You think I’m going to stay, don’t you?” Jaemin asks, that same neutrality that drives Donghyuck a little out of his mind, that same matter-of-fact tone that says all the things Donghyuck already knows. Jaemin is good at that too. He’s particularly good at turning Donghyuck against himself, fucking him up and acting like he’s the only one that knows him. And oh, oh it works. “Think I’m going to stick around until I got a bullet in my head.”

That doesn’t happen in suburbia. Jaemin is safe and sound in an off-white room in a cookie cutter house in a nice little neighborhood in the middle of suburbia. That doesn’t happen here. 

Jaemin is sharper than that, though, isn’t he? Jaemin is sharper than Donghyuck convinces himself into thinking. 

_Until you put a bullet in my head._

Boys from the primary school run by chasing a ball, and Donghyuck waves at a blonde boy that hangs around his little brother. And Donghyuck convinces himself that he used to be like them, convinces himself that he was, that he still is like them. Little boys like them turn out good, turn out normal. Born and raised in a cookie cutter family, in a cookie cutter home, in a cookie cutter neighborhood, in a cookie cutter town, and it’s alright, he’s alright, it will all be alright. 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Na Jaemin.” Donghyuck looks Jaemin in the eye and he smiles slowly. “I don’t think anything of that sort.”

The sun beats down on them both and Donghyuck thinks it’s making him a little lightheaded. 

“It’s my birthday.” Jaemin says. A simple fact. “The password to the little safe in your closet.”

And they both know what’s in there, don’t they? 

Donghyuck nods, runs his hand down Jaemin’s back, drags the tip of his finger along his spine. “A little narcissistic of you to try that code, isn’t it?”

“As easy as I think you are.” 

“You’re the only one who thinks that around here,” Donghyuck says with a low chuckle, tilting his head to the side and looking up at Jaemin from under his lashes. 

Jaemin is already looking at him, this lopsided smile slashed across his lips, too sharp around the edges. Jaemin has always looked too good to be true. Always something about him that was a little off, something about him that only Donghyuck noticed, something about him that attracted Donghyuck to him so fiercely. Maybe it’s how sweet he is. Donghyuck draws Jaemin in by his jaw and presses a kiss to his mouth. 

Strawberry flavored words spoken against smiling lips, “That makes you a dead man or an accomplice.” 

Jaemin laughs easily, face brightening in that way that makes Donghyuck laugh too, contagious as it is, almost free in its carelessness. “I told you, baby, m’not staying in this town.”

And Donghyuck is taken by this inexplicable satisfaction, this part of him that allows Jaemin to do as he pleases, that falls for how Jaemin holds himself and pretties himself up. 

Jaemin fills himself up with artificial sweetness for the world to eat up, for the world to spit out the moment they realize he’s laced with poison.

Donghyuck has always known the truth, has always tasted the bitterness, but it doesn’t matter. Nothing matters. 

And Donghyuck swallows him down. 

Jaemin’s white shoes are splattered with dried blood.

“It’s too small for two of us.”

Donghyuck likes how Jaemin tastes.

Jaemin is made of plastic and he’s shiny with gloss. 

A little too good to be true.

Like suburbia. 

**Author's Note:**

> haha..haha [slowly backs away] no editing no beta we die like boys in suburbia! i don't know if this has to be said but this is not an invite to date murderers. Please do not date murderers. Please do not murder people. 
> 
> [twitter](https://twitter.com/duckjaem) | [curious cat](https://curiouscat.me/boyeater)


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